Allison Behymer’s two youngest children are on the autism spectrum. Her daughter Charlee is age seven, her son Liam is age six; both were diagnosed with autism at the age of two. The pediatrician who provided the diagnosis told Allison that her children would remain non-verbal throughout their life and would never have the ability to walk or care for themselves and would not, therefore, be “viable humans”.

Allison rejected this grim outlook and made finding acceptance-based supports and therapies priority number one.

As mentioned in previous posts, I attended therapy for a period of several years and it marked a major turning point in my life. I had a positive experience as a direct result of those sessions, which were largely focused on learning about the autism spectrum and managing depression. (You can see samples of our discussion in this post about social data, and this post about depression).

What I haven’t mentioned: those sessions were with the second psychologist I spoke with. The first psychologist I went to? Complete disaster.